Details: This poster is of a vintage ad. It shows a hippopotamus. It shows carrots, lettuce, onion, tomatoes, and potatoes growing in the ground and being watered. At the top it says Grow it yourself. Plan a farm garden now. At the bottom it says Rural Electrifictaion Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), one of the departments of the United States government charged with providing public utilities (electricity, telephone, water, sewer) to rural areas in the United States. The agency's acronym is an allusion to the Latin word rus ( countryside ). RUS traces its roots to the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), one of the New Deal agencies created under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The REA was created on May 11, 1935 with the primary goal of promoting rural electrification. In the 1930s, the U.S. lagged behind Europe in providing electricity to rural areas due to the unwillingness of power companies to serve farmsteads.